Spiffy:

Iffy:

No huge improvements; sluggish visuals; inorganic environments.

At THQ's media event this week, we got to spend some time with the new Saints Row 2. From our time with the game, largely spent wreaking havoc with the new weapons and vehicles, developer Volition is sticking close to the original's strengths and leaving its weaknesses unaddressed. Guns, freedom, and drugs are still the focus of the game; broad social commentary and biting humor are not.

Pop Some Caps, Stay a While

Running around the city of Stilwater a few years after the events of Saints Row, our fresh-from-the-slammer protagonist was out to find out who had caused the cataclysm at the end of the first game, to reclaim the Row, and to claw his way back to the top. The first step in doing so is character customization. Unlike Grand Theft Auto IV's iconic Niko, your character in SR2 can look however you like. It can be male or female, heavy-set or thin, muscular or flabby, young or old; you can even customize your character's walk style and "non-verbal communications." We chose the classic "flipping the bird" and a crisp salute for our angry and polite gestures, and made a wiry old Asian avatar to bring into the world of SR2.

The game begins in your character's trailer, a filthy sty in a trailer park full of them. One of the best changes to the game is that respect, the in-game currency you earn from various activities, is now modified by more than what you're wearing. How you've customized your home can gain you a respect bonus, although you'll get more for an ultra-modern pad (with a slick stripper pole) than you will for the dingy digs you start with. We really appreciate that there's more to the all-important respect than just what you wear. That lets you actually customize your character to look the way you want them to look, instead of just to maximize your respect bonus.

Co-op has been improved, allowing you and a friend to play through the whole campaign together. We spent time playing with another journalist as our co-op "homey," and quickly learned that reviving them was as easy as walking up and tapping the Y button (on the 360 version). After a time delay, they'll get back up of their own accord, but during tense missions, you'll want to help them up as quickly as you can.

And there are quite a few new ways to get blasted in SR2. The game's radial weapon selection is intact, but the addition of satchel charges makes all the difference. There are new rifles, new pistols, and the general slew of new ballistic and melee carnage-makers we all expect from a sequel, but satchel charges really change how you can play with your firepower.

Thrown like the sticky bag they are, satchel charges can be left in careful locations, flung onto incoming traffic, or (for example) attached to a co-op ally's head. Laying out satchel charges and detonating them at strategic moments can make some missions, such as our demo mission of blowing up five meth labs in the trailer park, much smoother sailing. There's essentially nothing an enemy can do when you simultaneously blow up all five labs, or when you send a pedestrian screaming towards them with a few pounds of plastic explosive. We'll admit a fascination with any variant of remote-detonation explosives, but SR2's satchel charges open up your combat options substantially.

The other significant addition to the game's arsenal is an assault helicopter, armed with a mini-gun and rockets. Sure, it's about the most ridiculous thing to imagine someone being able to steal (let alone fly), but it's also a blast. In co-op, one player acts as pilot while the other becomes the gunner, but flying solo is easy enough. You can over-steer and send yourself into a lethal spin, but if you keep your cool you can do your best Airwolf impressions soon enough, making it easy to (for example) send rockets and mini-gun fire raining down on a co-op partner.

So, our first impressions of Saints Row 2 are largely positive. Volition is building on the over-the-top street style of the first game, upping the violence, and making co-op something it can be proud of. The build we saw showed a lot of the same graphical issues as the original, however, and the urban environment of Stilwater felt very tacked together. Maybe there's a good reason for there to be assault helicopters waiting just inbetween the main downtown area and a violence-ridden trailer park, but we can't think of one. We expect franchise fans to get their money's worth, but genre fans will likely still be playing GTA4 when SR2 hits.